Exoplanet: First Contact is a singleplayer, story-driven third person action RPG with survival elements set in a Space Western universe. Here, real and fictional technologies meet the cruel and unforgiving, yet romantic reality of the Wild West. You are Jack Sharp, a daring adventurer, stranded on a dangerous, wild planet known as K'Tharsis.

In this hellhole of a world, the local population of both human colonists and native aborigines are oppressed by the soulless Terraform corporation who uses slaves to mine a valuable mineral known as Antigravium. The player can choose either side, a mercenary working for the corporation or as an ally with the oppressed population of K'Tharsis. Several games, movies and fictional worlds helped to inspire the Exoplanet team's vision of the RPG experience.

Sources include, a space western TV series known as Firefly, the universe of Dune, charismatic characters of Sergio Leone and rich dialogues of Quentin Tarantino's films. The core game design values of Exoplanet were partly derived from best-working principles behind the classic RPG titles such as a living and breathing world of Gothic 2: Night of the Raven, Fallout, TES III: Morrowind, Red Dead Redemption and Borderlands.